Sailing has come to an end in Danga Bay, Johor, Malaysia

Time has flown....we travelled in daytime sailing stretches up the Riau Island group. Sembanka, Mesanak, Galan and we mastered the shipping lanes in the Singapore Strait and the 30nm trip down the Strait of Johor to the Danga river. The strait of Johor was patrolled by armed police boats and the whole coast was protected by a fence with signs with skull and crossbones and "Danger, live firing area" written on it.We had a rain storm on the way down with almost nil visibility so was a bit worrying trying to keep out of Singaporean waters!

One of the two causeways connecting
Singapore and Malaysia

a fish trap - we met hundreds of these around the islands - sometimes many miles out to sea.A nightmare at night as they are not always lit. The net is lowered into the water at night and the fish attracted by lights

 Eric caught this big Barracuda on a line behind the boat. It was about 120-130metres long,but we had to throw him back in due to risk of ciguetera poisoning. This is a poison that reef fish pick up from a type of algae and when Barracudas feed off a lot of reef fish they can have high levels in their flesh. Causes damage to peripheral nerves.

This little fish we traded with some local fishermen. The guy on the right was the owner of an island coconut plantation and we had fun conversing with my english-indonesian dictionary, which I gave him as a present. They motored away with him consulting  the dictionary in preparation for his next boat visit!

The Indonesian people row their boats in a standing position. The kids loved coming out to visit these strangers on yachts. They almost always wanted school books and pens from us and were very eager to try out their English.All Indonesian kids greeted us on land with "hello Mister!"

Here - the Neptunes gathered at the equator!